1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, such as an ink jet printer and an ink jet plotter, and also to an ink cartridge detachably attached to a printer main body of the printing apparatus. More specifically the invention pertains to a technique of processing and storing required pieces of information in the ink cartridge.
2. Description of the Related Art
A printing apparatus such as the ink jet printer and the ink jet plotter mainly includes an ink cartridge, in which one or plural inks are kept, and a printer main body with a print head to carry out actual printing operations on a printing medium. The print head ejects ink fed from the ink cartridge onto the printing medium, such as printing paper, so as to implement printing on the printing medium. The ink cartridge is designed to be detachably attached to the printer main body. A new ink cartridge has a predetermined quantity of ink kept therein. When the ink kept in an ink cartridge runs out, the ink cartridge is replaced with a new one. Such a printing apparatus is arranged to cause the printer main body to calculate the remaining quantity of ink in the ink cartridge based on the amount of ink ejected from the print head and to inform the user of a state of running out of the ink, in order to prevent the printing procedure from being interrupted by the out-of-ink.
Another proposed ink cartridge stores certain pieces of information, such as the type and the capacity of each ink kept in the ink cartridge, in advance. These pieces of information are stored, for example, in the form of a barcode, in the ink cartridge. The printer, to which such an ink cartridge is attached, scans the barcode and reads the certain pieces of information, such as the type of ink kept in the ink cartridge, thereby enabling a printing process suitable for the ink to be carried out.
While the certain pieces of information, such as the type of each ink kept in the ink cartridge, are stored in the ink cartridge, other pieces of information relating to the ink cartridge, such as a remaining quantity of each ink, are stored in the printer or a printer driver for the printer. In the event that the ink cartridge is replaced with a new one in the course of a printing process, the information relating to the ink cartridge, such as the remaining quantity of each ink, may be lost or made incorrect.